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- Freud's first
- female patients
- often had
- unexplainable
- afflictions, such
- as a paralysed
- arm. He found that
- with hypnosis he
- could coax out
- forgotten,
- unpleasant
- memories which
- explained the
- ailment - and,
- once recalled,
- cured it. Freud
- set out to explore
- the strange,
- hidden processes
- of the mind
- #
- Freud found
- hypnosis an
- unsatisfactory
- method with
- neurotic patients.
- He began to
- develop other
- methods for
- exploring the
- unconscious; for
- example he
- looked into
- patients' dreams,
- convinced that
- they contained
- encoded clues to
- the patient's state
- of mind
- #
- Psychoanalysis,
- as Freud called
- his therapeutic
- technique, was
- taken up enthus-
- iastically by
- some and roundly
- attacked by
- others. The idea
- that children have
- sexual urges
- caused outrage,
- but Freud was
- insistent that it
- was misdirection
- of these natural
- urges which
- causes neurotic
- problems in
- later life
- #
- According to
- Freud, the
- redirection of the
- sexual impulse
- was the engine of
- all kinds of
- human activity:
- writing books,
- climbing moun-
- tains, making
- money, going to
- war, and so on.
- It is only when
- something goes
- wrong that the
- primal sexual
- drive produces
- illness
- #
- Freud saw Nazism
- as a kind of mass
- neurosis, where
- the libido (sexual
- desire or vital
- impulse) of a
- whole nation
- attached itself to
- one man, Adolf
- Hitler. It was also
- a personal tragedy
- for Freud, a Jew.
- He was forced to
- emigrate, and his
- sisters later
- perished in the
- death camps
- @
- Freud proposed a
- 'topography of
- the mind',
- defining three
- areas. The 'id' is
- the seat of all
- primal urges, the
- 'ego' develops
- after birth to
- control and
- repress the 'id'
- (and also handles
- all conscious
- perception), and
- the 'super-ego' is
- parental authority
- transformed into
- conscience
- #
- Freud felt his
- topography of the
- mind explained
- such phenomena
- as religion, which
- to him was just
- the repressed
- super-ego writ
- large. As usual,
- Freud was
- attacked for his
- ideas, which
- seemed to some
- to undermine
- human dignity,
- reason and
- morality
- #
- Freud's thinking
- travelled a long
- way. Starting from
- the hysterical
- illnesses of Vien-
- nese women
- he arrived, by
- stages, at a
- picture of the
- human psyche;
- and this led to a
- universal account
- of the origins of
- civilisation, its
- religion, its
- politics and its
- social structures
- #
- Freud's ideas
- brought him
- many disciples,
- among them his
- own daughter
- Anna. Another
- follower was Carl
- Jung, who split
- with the master
- and developed an
- influential psycho-
- analytic approach
- of his own
- #
- Though many of
- his theories have
- been challenged
- in the course of
- the years, Freud
- has had an
- inestimable
- influence on
- countless areas
- of study beyond
- psychology -
- literature,
- anthropology,
- philosophy,
- sociology and
- medicine, to
- name just the
- most obvious
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